258 The American Naturalist. [March, 
symbolic intent of eight small crosses between the arms of the larger cen- 
tral cross seems clear. No reasonable skeptic could deny the emblem. 
Its presence testifying to pre-Christian cross symbolism from the Lev- 
ant to the Andes, stamping it upon one of the remarkable coincidences 
in craft apparatus, common to the Old and New Hemispheres, adds 
keenly to the interest of the object. 
Mr. Wilson has tightened the lines about a theory, (that of parallel 
development) which may go too far in admitting original migration 
from Asia, but denying tokens of it. And the book adds weight to our 
persuasion of the existence of many objects of ethnological import dis- 
covered and undiscovered, which mean migration and race-contact after 
all, and can no more be explained by the theory of human minds 
working alike, than scarabs in Etruria— HENRY C. MERCER. 
Exploration of Captain Theobert Maler in Yucatan.— 
Archzeologists look with keen interest upon all researches made among 
that remnant of the Maya Indians of Yucatan who have taken refuge 
in the great forest. No less important the investigation which might 
devote itself to other tribes still inhabiting the fastnesses of Chiapas 
or Tabasco since it cannot be doubted that Archeological information 
of value has been preserved by these descendants of the most highly 
developed of aboriginal American peoples. Captain Theobert Maler 
is at this moment on the point of setting out on an expedition to that part 
of Tabasco inhabited by the Lacandones indians among whom he will 
inquire particularly for the existence of glyptical signs and any 
remembered trace of the art of hieroglyphic writing once character- 
istic of their ancestors. He informs me that certain interesting ancient 
industries are well preserved among them as for instance the making of 
incense burners (of clay?) adorned with human faces and painted with 
vivid colors, while the art of chipping arrow-heads and blades of flint 
still flourishes. With great interest we would follow the details of his 
search for a key that might open for us the long hidden meaning of the 
Maya literature, though he fears that the knowlege of the ancient 
symbols among the Lacandones, is entirely lost—H. C. MERCER. 
Cave hunting in Syria.—At the entrance of several rock shelters 
near Liban, Syria the Abbé Charles Moulier has recently found (see 
La. Nature, 25th, July, 1896) a series of chipped flint blades “ well re- 
presenting the types regarded as Mousterian, or of Reindeer age” in 
France. These objects which are never associated with specimens of pol- 
ished stone, are discovered bedded in a reddish hard breccia mixed wit 
